All cast members

The list below includes both repertory and featured players past and present, but omits SNL writers and others who were not listed as cast members during the show's credits. The dates given are those of the years they were part of the cast. The chart also shows whether the cast member has served as a guest host, appeared as the anchorperson of the "Weekend Update" segment (by any of its titles), or has been the subject of their own "Best of" home video collection. Many of the cast members were writers as well. "Middle group" performers are introduced after the main cast by the announcer saying "...with" and reading off these performers before ending with featured players.

Tenures

Longest tenures

Thompson holds the record of being the longest-tenured cast member in the show's history. He was also the first cast member born after SNL's premiere in 1975 (Thompson was born in 1978) to have joined the show.

Hired after a cast overhaul, he was the last cast member hired in the 1990s to leave the show, and the oldest cast member to leave the show (age 53 when he departed). In 2014, Hammond returned to the show as the announcer following the death of longtime announcer Don Pardo.

Meyers anchored Weekend Update from 2006 to 2014, making him the longest-serving Weekend Update anchor (breaking the records held by Dennis Miller and Tina Fey). He left the show to become the host of Late Night.

Hired as a writer at the beginning of the series, as the show progressed, Franken and Tom Davis were allowed to perform material on-air sporadically. He left the show in 1980, but returned when Lorne Michaels came back in 1985, regaining his writing and on-air featured status until 1995. Despite the long tenure, he was only credited for about 90 episodes. Franken later served as a United States Senator from Minnesota from 2008 to 2018.

Meadows joined the show in the second half of season 16, and left at the end of season 25 after ten seasons. At the time of his departure, he held the record for the longest consecutive tenure as a cast member.

Shortest tenures

These cast members spent less than a full 20-episode season on the show.[1]

Hired by Dick Ebersol to be a featured player, she appeared in a few sketches at dress rehearsal in what would be the final episode of season six, due to the Writers' Guild of America going on strike in 1981. She did not return to the SNL cast in season seven. This technically makes her the shortest tenured SNL cast member. Although she did not appear in the single episode for which she was credited as a featured player, she had appeared uncredited in five previous episodes.[2]

She also was hired as part of Ebersol's temporary season six cast following the termination of Jean Doumanian, and appeared on-camera in a Weekend Update piece. When the show was put on hiatus for retooling, she was not chosen to return to the show for the season seven cast.

Before becoming a cast member, he submitted a short film – a parody of the film The Color of Money – that was shown on the season 12 episode hosted by Charlton Heston. He was hired during season 14, but quit after four episodes due to creative differences. Despite this, he returned to host in 1998 and 2011 and had a recurring role as Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's ex-lawyer.

He's been a writer since 1992. However, he became a featured player in near the end season 21 for the last four episodes, however, he only appeared and was credited for episodes 17, 18, and 20. His last episode was in the 3rd episode of the 22nd season. After that episode, he decided to leave the show for good.

He was one of the original "Not-Ready-for-Primetime Players", because NBC wanted someone older in the cast. He was credited for only the first three episodes, though he continued to make several uncredited appearances throughout the first season. He was later known for voicing the valet Woodhouse in the animated series Archer.

One of the original "Not Ready for Primetime Players" and the show's first head writer, he was dropped as a cast member after a few episodes. He remained with the show as a writer (leaving and returning twice) and occasional on-screen performer.

After being the band's pianist for the first five seasons, he joined the cast during season five, but left after the finale. He hosted SNL in 1987, making him the only member of the house band to do so.

Another noteworthy presidential portrayal was that of Dan Aykroyd as former president Nixon from 1975–79.

The web short Presidential Reunion, released in 2010 and produced by Funny or Die, reunites six SNL cast members who have portrayed sitting presidents. The cast members span all the sitting presidents that have been portrayed on SNL up to 2010 with the exception of Ronald Reagan. Jim Carrey portrayed Ronald Reagan in the web short because two of the actors who had portrayed Reagan had died, and the remaining three had declined to appear in the reunion. Although he was never a cast member for SNL, Carrey did audition to be a cast member for the 1980–81 season and has hosted the show in May 1996, January 2011, and October 2014.

Both cast and hosts

34 former SNL cast members have come back to host the show. The first former cast member to come back and host the show was Chevy Chase in February 1978, and the most recent former cast member to join the list was Seth Meyers, who joined in October 2018.

"SNL Curse"

Although SNL is best known as the launchpad for many successful careers, nine former cast members have died before the age of 60. This has given rise to a superstition known as the "Saturday Night Live Curse".[6][7][8]

Radner died from ovarian cancer. She was originally scheduled to host the season 13 finale, a first for a former female cast member. However, SNL was canceled due to a Writer's Guild of America (WGA) strike. Radner's health worsened the following year. Moments before the season 14 finale, news broke of Radner's death. In lieu of the opening monologue Steve Martin, visibly shaken, introduced a replay of the "Dancing in the Dark" sketch he and Radner had performed in a 1978 episode;[9] her ex-husband G. E. Smith performed a musical tribute to Radner with the SNL Band.

Hartman was murdered by his wife, Brynn, while he slept in his Encino, California, home. Before committing this crime, Brynn had allegedly consumed a combination of cocaine, alcohol, and the antidepressant drug Zoloft, and later killed herself. During SNL's 25th anniversary special in 1999, several of Hartman's peers honored his memory by replaying his sketch "Love is a Dream" from 1988.

Blizzard Man is a recurring skit by Andy Samberg on American television program on Saturday Night Live. The skit features Samberg as the title character, who is brought in recording studios to assist musicians with an in-progress song, only for them to find that his musical ability is limited to a cheesy parody of serious rap music. Despite this, the skit always concludes with the artists recording with him anyway. Guests stars for the skit in the past have included Ludacris, T-Pain, P. Diddy, Common, and 2 Chainz as themselves and Tim McGraw and Robert De Niro playing fictional characters.

Brillstein Entertainment Partners (formerly known as Brillstein-Grey Entertainment and Brillstein-Grey Communications) is a talent management firm and television production company formed by the 1991 addition of Brad Grey to The Brillstein Company, founded by Bernie Brillstein in 1969.

Broadway Video is an American multimedia entertainment studio founded by Lorne Michaels, creator of the sketch comedy TV series Saturday Night Live and producer of other television programs and movies.

Christopher Crosby Farley (February 15, 1964 – December 18, 1997) was an American actor and comedian. Farley was known for his loud, energetic comedic style, and was a member of Chicago's Second City Theatre and later a cast member of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live between 1990 and 1995. He then went on to pursue a film career, starring in films such as Tommy Boy, Black Sheep and Beverly Hills Ninja. Farley died of a drug overdose at the age of 33.

Daniel Edward Aykroyd (born July 1, 1952) is a Canadian-American actor, comedian, musician, and filmmaker. He was an original member of the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" on Saturday Night Live (1975–1979). A musical sketch he performed with John Belushi on SNL, the Blues Brothers, turned into an actual performing band and then the 1980 film The Blues Brothers.

He conceived and starred in Ghostbusters (1984), which spawned a sequel and eventually an entire media franchise. In 1990, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the 1989 film Driving Miss Daisy. He starred in his own sitcom, Soul Man (1997–1998). Aykroyd is also a businessman, having co-founded the House of Blues chain of music venues and the Crystal Head Vodka brand.

"Ease on Down the Road" is a song from the 1975 Broadway musical The Wiz, an R&B re-interpretation of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Charlie Smalls–composed tune is the show's version of both "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" and "We're Off to See the Wizard" from the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz. In the song, performed three times during the show, Dorothy and her friends the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion dance their way down the Yellow Brick Road and give each other words of encouragement.Two versions of the song have been released as charting singles: one associated with the Broadway show by studio group Consumer Rapport in 1975, and a second recorded by Diana Ross and Michael Jackson for the 1978 feature-film adaptation of The Wiz.

The Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album is presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement in comedy." The award was awarded yearly from 1959 to 1993 and then from 2004 to present day. There have been several minor changes to the name of the award over this time:

From 1959 to 1967 it was Best Comedy Performance

From 1968 to 1991 it was known as Best Comedy Recording

From 1992 to 1993 and from 2004 to the present day it was awarded as Best Comedy AlbumIn 1960 and 1961 two separate awards were presented for the best spoken and for the best musical comedy performance.

In 1994 the award was restricted to spoken word comedy albums and moved into the "spoken" field. From then through 2003, it was awarded as the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Comedy Album.

In 2004 the award was reinstated within the comedy field as the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album, once again allowing musical comedy works to be considered.

Bill Cosby holds the record for most consecutive wins, with six earned between 1965 and 1970. Peter Schickele (of P.D.Q. Bach fame) is the runner-up, with four wins between 1990 and 1993.

Saturday Night Live (abbreviated as SNL) is a late-night sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels. It premiered on NBC, a terrestrial television network, on October 11, 1975 under the title NBC's Saturday Night. The show usually satirizes contemporary American popular culture and politics. Saturday Night Live features a two-tiered cast: the repertory members, also known as the "Not Ready for Prime-Time Players", and newer cast members, known as "Featured Players."

A typical episode of SNL will feature a single host, who delivers the opening monologue and performs in sketches with the cast. While the format also features a musical guest, and a number of episodes have featured celebrity cameos, the focus of the show is the guest host.

George Carlin was first to host the show; Candice Bergen was the first woman to host the show a few weeks later and again hosted only six weeks after that. Guests that host five times (or more) are members of the Five-Timers Club that originated on December 8, 1990, when Tom Hanks became the seventh person to host their fifth episode. Occasionally, a host will also be the musical guest, such as first seen with Paul Simon on October 18, 1975, and, most recently, Donald Glover in 2018.

Presidential Reunion is an American comedy Web short directed by Ron Howard and starring Saturday Night Live cast members who parodied Presidents Ford to Obama. The skit was released onto the Funny or Die website on March 3, 2010 and received mixed to negative reviews.

That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, was a satirical television comedy programme on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost. An American version by the same name aired on NBC from 1964 to 1965, also featuring Frost.

The programme is considered a significant element of the satire boom in the UK in the early 1960s. It broke ground in comedy through lampooning the establishment and political figures. Its broadcast coincided with coverage of the politically charged Profumo affair and John Profumo, the politician at the centre of the affair became a target for derision. TW3 was first broadcast on Saturday, 24 November 1962.

The Land of Gorch was a recurring skit that appeared in season one of the American comedy television program Saturday Night Live, featuring Jim Henson's Muppets. Prior to his work for children on Sesame Street, Henson had created puppetry work, including his show Sam and Friends, for adult audiences. His characters appeared regularly on the late-night comedy television programs, and The Ed Sullivan Show. After Sesame Street, Henson feared he would become typecast into working on children's television series. His talent agent Bernie Brillstein, who represented Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, and John Belushi, helped him transition to Saturday Night Live.

The premise of The Land of Gorch featured Muppet characters, who were members of a royal family, in a faraway locale. They behaved boorishly and made frequent references to drug abuse, sexual activity, and consumption of alcohol. Characters included King Ploobis, Queen Peuta, their son Wiss, and servants Scred and Vazh. These characters often consulted their oracle Mighty Favog for advice.

The writers of Saturday Night Live clashed with Henson's vision for the program. Michael O'Donoghue, Alan Zweibel, Al Franken, and Tom Davis often tried to avoid writing the weekly sketches. Henson felt they were trying to write for situational comedy rather than staying within his intended story. Frank Oz eventually agreed the partnership between Henson's team and the show's writers was imperfect, and was thankful they moved on to The Muppet Show.

Commentators agreed the reception for The Land of Gorch was universally negative; The A.V. Club said it was an in-joke that nobody wanted to keep the sketches on Saturday Night Live. San Francisco Chronicle called the characters the opposite of Kermit the Frog and compared them to trolls. DVD Talk called the feature the worst mistake in the first season of Saturday Night Live. Academic Michael J. Bernsten wrote in his essay "The Muppetry of Nightmares" that the idea failed because the characters were irredeemable and unfunny. Nonetheless, The Land of Gorch had a significant impact on later Henson works, including both the 1982 feature film The Dark Crystal and the 1991 television show Dinosaurs.

Tim Robinson (born May 23, 1981) is an American actor, comedian, and writer best known for starring in the Comedy Central series Detroiters. Prior to that, he was known for his work as a writer and cast member on Saturday Night Live.

Trading Places is a 1983 American comedy film directed by John Landis and starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy. It tells the story of an upper-class commodities broker and a homeless street hustler whose lives cross paths when they are unknowingly made part of an elaborate bet. Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche, Denholm Elliott, and Jamie Lee Curtis also star. The storyline is often called a modern take on Mark Twain's classic 19th-century novel The Prince and the Pauper.

The film was written by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod and was produced by Aaron Russo. It was released to theaters in North America on June 8, 1983, where it was distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film earned over $90 million during its theatrical run in the United States, finishing as the fourth highest earning film of the year and the second highest earning R-rated film of 1983.

Denholm Elliott and Jamie Lee Curtis won the awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role, respectively, at the 37th British Academy Film Awards. The film was nominated for several additional awards including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the 41st Golden Globe Awards.

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is a puppet character puppeteered and voiced by Robert Smigel, best known for mocking celebrities in an Eastern European accent. As his name indicates, Triumph's comedic style is almost exclusively insult comedy. A Montenegrin Mountain Hound, Triumph often puffs a cigar, which usually falls out of his mouth when he starts talking. He debuted in 1997 on NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien and also appeared on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien from time to time, as well as the short-lived TV Funhouse, TBS's Conan, and Adult Swim's The Jack and Triumph Show. Smigel and Triumph have been ejected from several events for Triumph's antics, including Westminster (three times), the Honolulu line for auditions for American Idol, and the 2004 Democratic National Convention (while shooting an aborted movie project).

Winter Miller (born 1973) is an American playwright and journalist. In the summer of 2007, a reading (directed by Joanna Settle) of Miller's play In Darfur was at the Delacorte Theater in New York City.

Miller was formerly the assistant to Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist of The New York Times, and is now a reporter on the Times 's Metropolitan news desk. She has also written for the weekly Arts and Leisure, Style, daily Culture and Obituary pages of the Times.

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